THE GUASO NYERO 295 



them. In these thorn-trees the weaver birds had built 

 multitudes of their straw nests, each with its bottle-shaped 

 mouth toward the north, away from the direction of the 

 prevailing wind. 



Each morning we were up at dawn, and saw the heavens 

 redden and the sun flame over the rim of the world. All 

 day long we rode and walked across the endless flats, save 

 that at noon, when the sky was like molten brass, we might 

 rest under the thin half shade of some thorn-tree. As the 

 shadows lengthened and the harsh, pitiless glare softened, 

 we might turn campward; or we might hunt until the sun 

 went down, and the mountains in the far-off west, and the 

 sky above them, grew faint and dim with the hues of fairy- 

 land. Then we would ride back through the soft, warm 

 beauty of the tropic night, the stars blazing overhead and 

 the silver moonlight flooding the reaches of dry grass; it 

 was so bright that our shadows were almost as black and 

 clear-cut as in the day. On reaching camp I would take 

 a cup of tea with crackers or gingersnaps, and after a hot 

 bath and a shave I was always eager for dinner. 



Scattered over these flats were herds of zebra, oryx, and 

 gazelle. The gazelle, the most plentiful and much the 

 tamest of the game, were the northern form of the Grant's 

 gazelle, with straighter horns which represented the oppo- 

 site extreme when compared with the horns of the Roberts' 

 type which we got on the Sotik. They seemed to me some- 

 what less in size than the big gazelle of the Kapiti Plains. 

 One of the bucks I shot, an adult of average size (I was 

 not able to weigh my biggest one), weighed one hundred and 

 fifteen pounds; a very big true Grant's buck which I shot 

 on the Kapiti Plains weighed one hundred and seventy-one 



